Essential Question:How can communities build solidarity and ensure equality as the population changes?
May-June Project Narrative
Immigration, once an issue that was on the front pages of the mainstream media and part of the political dialogue, has faded from the public discussion. The real impact of immigration and the issues that surround it, however, have not gone away—it may be argued, in fact, that there is a real danger at the human level in pushing the issue of immigration to the background.
Our school is part of a community that faces the issue of immigration on a daily basis; additionally, as a social justice school, we are compelled to speak on the injustices that our community faces. Therefore, we will investigate the issues surrounding immigration as our May-June project, which will try to answer the following question: How can communities build solidarity and ensure equality as the population changes?
Our students have identified five areas of concern in the wider issue of immigration:
Criminalization, harassment, and racism against immigrants
Immigrants vs. Immigrants: divisions within the larger community
Media coverage of immigrants: stereotypes and scapegoating
Legalization, deportations and the separation of families
The Border: dangers and laws, creating and patrolling the border
After gaining familiarity with general knowledge about immigration, students will form groups that will investigate these specific areas of concern in more detail, trying to answer the question of building solidarity and ensuring equality within and among immigrant communities. By the end of the project, students in each group will be able to communicate the following:
a description of the issue that they have studied
a rundown of the causes behind this issue
a prediction of how this issue, if left unchecked, would negatively affect our environment
a proposal for building solidarity and ensuring equality
Each group will present their findings at the culminating event: a student symposium focusing on immigration.
May-June Project: May 27-June 12, 2008
Topic: Immigration
Essential Question: How can communities build solidarity and ensure equality as the population changes?
May-June Project Narrative
Immigration, once an issue that was on the front pages of the mainstream media and part of the political dialogue, has faded from the public discussion. The real impact of immigration and the issues that surround it, however, have not gone away—it may be argued, in fact, that there is a real danger at the human level in pushing the issue of immigration to the background.
Our school is part of a community that faces the issue of immigration on a daily basis; additionally, as a social justice school, we are compelled to speak on the injustices that our community faces. Therefore, we will investigate the issues surrounding immigration as our May-June project, which will try to answer the following question: How can communities build solidarity and ensure equality as the population changes?
Our students have identified five areas of concern in the wider issue of immigration:
Criminalization, harassment, and racism against immigrants
Immigrants vs. Immigrants: divisions within the larger community
Media coverage of immigrants: stereotypes and scapegoating
Legalization, deportations and the separation of families
The Border: dangers and laws, creating and patrolling the border
After gaining familiarity with general knowledge about immigration, students will form groups that will investigate these specific areas of concern in more detail, trying to answer the question of building solidarity and ensuring equality within and among immigrant communities. By the end of the project, students in each group will be able to communicate the following:
a description of the issue that they have studied
a rundown of the causes behind this issue
a prediction of how this issue, if left unchecked, would negatively affect our environment
a proposal for building solidarity and ensuring equality
Each group will present their findings at the culminating event: a student symposium focusing on immigration.
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